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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28712238">Shortcut</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abyssal_Agito/pseuds/Abyssal_Agito'>Abyssal_Agito</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>TERA (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - High School, Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, Drowning, Drowning Peril, F/F, No Tentacle Sex, Tentacle Monsters, Underwater, Underwater Peril</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 10:09:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,216</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28712238</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abyssal_Agito/pseuds/Abyssal_Agito</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Theresa the Elin High School Girl is aghast that she's going to be late for the first time in her life, and would be more aghast when she has a close encounter with death when she's forced to take a shortcut to school...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Shortcut</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Theresa was late for school which was a first for the diligent Elin schoolgirl. She woke up later than usual as her alarm didn't ring and she still had some last minute things to complete before leaving her house. To save time, she even wore her school swimsuit under her school uniform for swim class later, and she was comically munching on a piece of toast as she ran through town. Nothing but a string of bad luck one after another.</p><p>Looking to save even more time and cut her travel time to school by half, she opted to take the shortcut she often heard about from other students of her school. Though the forest looked dark and foreboding, Theresa didn't care when she looked at the time on her cellphone and was running on the forest path even faster than she was out on the open town road, with her shoulder length hair and large thick ears constantly swaying and being blown back by the wind as she ran.<br/>
<br/>
So focused was she on trying to get to school fast and the path ahead that she did not see or notice until too late a large tree root that was growing over the path by the small lake in the middle of the forest which caught the tip of her foot enough to trip and send her flying briefly into the air before crashing onto the forest ground with a painful thud, followed by her bag and its contents landing not far in front of her. Fortunately, her glasses managed to stay on her face albeit jolted out of position and giving her an extra layer of headache on top of the pain coursing through her body.</p><p>She wanted to cry so much. Tears welled at the corner of her eyes. She had never experienced a day go this bad before until now. She felt like wanting nothing more but to stay on the ground where she could just hide and cry out.</p><p>Except her thought was cut short when she felt something slithered up her stocking covered leg and wrapped tightly around it before dragging her backwards over the ground.<br/>
<br/>
Theresa yelped with surprise at the sudden dragging motion, trying to look back to see nothing that's pulling her, yet the sensation of something wrapped around her leg was still there but she wasn't able to make out what it was other than it was something long and strong. She did however managed to see that she was being dragged towards the lake, and immediately she screamed aloud out of panic, her hands reaching out futilely to grab on to something before she get pulled away any further. No dirt nor grass she could grab were strong enough to halt unwanted progress, and she was soon dragged to the edge of the lake where long, squirming appendages reaches out of the water surface to wrap themselves around her arms and body, no doubt the same tentacles that was wrapped tightly around her leg.</p><p>If she had paid attention when running earlier, it was the one that's wrapped around her leg that made her trip and fell.<br/>
<br/>
Her face was a mask of unbridled fear. She didn't think her day could get any worse. As the tentacles stopped pulling her to wrap more of its appendages around her, it gave her a brief pause where she could try to sit up and gain some leverage to pull herself free. She was met instead by the tentacles suddenly pulling at her entire body even more strongly than before. <br/>
<br/>
Theresa managed to yelp with surprise just before she landed bodily on the water surface, and was summarily dragged underwater screaming her breath away in flurries of bubbles she was unable to control due to her panicking with fear. She thrashed wildly in the water, pulling at the tentacles that continued to drag her deeper and deeper still where the light barely lit the surrounding water. So great was her struggle against the tentacles that her uniform top and skirt came undone by the tentacles which then somehow pulled them off of her, leaving Theresa only in the swimsuit she wore underneath: she missed the irony that at least she was prepared for a sudden yet unwanted swim.</p><p>Her lungs ached and burned with fire. Her bubbly screams earlier muted into weak grunts and mewls while her chest visibly convulses as her bodily need to breathe became apparent to her now. Her struggle lessened as she strained to hold on to what remained of her breath in her tortured lungs. Tried as she might, smalls wisps of air bubbles escapes though her pursed lips towards the surface far above. In a moment of clarity in the midst of her predicament, Theresa looked up at the bubbles with envy and wished she could join it and that she didn't wake up late today. She pulled at the tentacles of the unknown lake monster that's wrapped and pinned her right arm to her side with all the strength she could muster in her last moments, to reach up for the bright light on the surface above that she could no longer enjoy.<br/>
<br/>
And when her hand reached out as far as she could, a strong convulsion wracked her body once, causing her to blow out all her remaining stale air in a bloosh past her open lips, before she instinctively inhaled with a pained gasp and realized too late it was water she was sucking down her windpipe instead of air.</p><p>Theresa thrashed and jerked uncontrollably in the monster's grasp once more with a finality to somehow survive at all costs as she her body grew weak and numb to the pain of having water invade inside of her. She coughed out the water that she sucked in, but only drew in twice the amount into her flooded lungs when she tried to inhale. Her expression was a mask of unimaginable pain.<br/>
<br/>
As the edges of her senses dull, Theresa didn't see a blonde haired Elin girl had dove down to her with a knife in hand after having heard her scream before she was dragged underwater. Rune swam towards the drowning Theresa who was struggling less now which horrified her that she was almost too late to save her classmate, and quickly reached down to the lake bottom where she then stabbed at a small green glassy orb that was the source of the tentacles, a creature that Rune was familiar with in these woods.<br/>
<br/>
With the source of its strength struck, the tentacles shivered before going immediately limp, finally releasing Theresa now motionless body at the mercy of the water currents. Rune quickly swam around the drowned girl and put her arms around her and quickly kicked her legs to swim back towards the surface before it really is too late...</p><p>Theresa came to coughing and spitting out water from her mouth after Rune administered CPR she had learned from one of their classes in school. She leaned back relieved that she was able to revive her classmate, and feared the worst if she had arrived a little later. Perhaps there was a good thing that she was late for school and forced to take the shortcut today...</p>
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